Guilt is what separates humans from animals.

I'm writing this memoir from the perspective of somebody who's prosperous and has means. Having said that, one of the things that I think I discovered about those additional years is that I don't think they really are added to the end of life.

Familiarity breeds content.

an the president bring out the voters who were so enthusiastic about him in 2008 and seem a little disenchanted now? Can he bring out young people? Can he bring out Latinos? Can he bring out those white suburban moms?

The truth about your own life is not always easy to accept, and sometimes hasn't even occurred to you.

The 1992 US Olympic basketball team is the best sports team ever, the equivalent of rounding up the greatest American writers of the last century or so and watching them collaborate: 'OK, Twain, you do the dialogue and hand off to Faulkner. He'll do the interior monologue. Hemingway will edit - no, don't make that face, you know you overwrite. And be nice to Cheever. He's young, but he's got a good ear. Wharton and Cather can't play - they're girls.'

People who wish to salute the free and independent side of their evolutionary character acquire cats. People who wish to pay homage to their servile and salivating roots own dogs.